Page 38 of The Shadow Friends

“It’s not just any radiation, Jo,” said Maggie. “If this was a deliberate poisoning, it most likely involves polonium-210, otherwise known as radium F. Traces of it can be found naturally, in food and tobacco, but it requires a highly purified dose to make you seriously ill. There’s only one country in the world that produces that purified form: Russia.”

Jo looked around at their faces, as if searching for confirmation that they were serious. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This sounds like something way above my pay grade. It belongs with the FBI. Or the CIA. Or—”

“We have no doubt they’re already here in town,” said Declan.

“You’re telling me some Russian spy is running around here, killing people?”

“He’s probably long gone by now. But the fact he used polonium tells us this murder was sanctioned by Moscow. It’s not surprising, really. Moscow has a nasty habit of punishing its enemies. They call it ‘sudden Russian death syndrome,’ and it can happen anywhere in the world. Defectors are at the top of their hit list. And that’s exactly what Dr. Maslov was. Eighteen years ago, he slipped away from his Russian colleagues while he was attending a scientific conference in Warsaw, and he walked into the US embassy. Maslov was a particularly damaging defector, because he brought with him a wealth of information about Russia’s bioweapons program.”

“That was eighteen years ago? Why kill him now?”

“It may be just a matter of opportunity. Maslov was a cautious man. For years, he lived quietly in Virginia, keeping to himself. Then he began to let down his guard. Began traveling to conferences, even went to Uganda, at the request of the World Health Organization. He probably thought it was finally safe to venture out into the world again. And what safer place is there than Purity, Maine?”

“It is a safe place,” said Jo.

“But not for a man on Moscow’s hit list. There’s no expiration date on revenge. And killing him serves another purpose: as a warning to any other Russian who’s thinking about defecting.”

“If this really was a political assassination, why are you talking to me about it? Shouldn’t you be on the phone with your old friends at the Agency?”

“You’re the one we trust.”

“Don’t you trust them?”

The four friends glanced at each other.

“The Agency has changed since we retired,” said Ben. “There’s been a recent realignment of priorities, and the new leadership doesn’t seem to think of Russia as the enemy. Now it’s more about absolute loyalty to these new folks in charge. We have to be careful about exposing any friends who still work there. If we reach out to them, and they’re caught assisting us, their jobs could be in jeopardy. We don’t want them to attract the evil eye.”

Jo frowned. “You sound like you’re actually afraid.”

“For our friends at the Agency, yes,” said Declan. “We’re not sure you should be involved in this either.”

“I made the decision to call you,” said Lloyd. “If this turns out to be a mistake, I’m the one you can all blame.”

This did not sound like the Lloyd they all knew, the ever-cheerful bon vivant with his cocktail shaker and his well-thumbed cookbook. He had the bloodshot eyes and the gray stubble of a man who’d scarcely slept last night, who had not even bothered to shave this morning.

“I just want to find my wife,” he said. “And I don’t care how we do it.”

“But why call me? This sounds like something the FBI should be dealing with.”

“We’d rather not involve the Feebies,” Ben said. “We’re concerned that Ingrid . . . that she . . .”

“She’s what?”

“Somehow involved.”

“In Maslov’s poisoning?”

“No!” barked Lloyd. “Not that!”

“But somehow, she is involved,” said Ben. He turned to Lloyd. “You have to admit, it’s starting to look that way.”

“Once again, folks, you’ve left me in the dust,” said Jo. “How is Ingrid involved?”

“When Dr. Maslov first fell ill,” said Maggie, “we all quite logically assumed it was an infection. He’d just come from an Ebola hot zone, and he had the classical signs and symptoms of Ebola. Vomiting, a crashing lymphocyte count. That’s all consistent with a virus. So why did they suddenly think of radiation poisoning, a diagnosis that’s completely out of left field? There’s this old medical saying, ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras.’ Well, polonium poisoning isn’t just a zebra, it’s a unicorn. A possibility that would never occur to a doctor in Maine.”

“So why did they think of polonium?”

“Dr. Stamoran told me he got a phone call from a researcher at CDC. A woman. She asked him to send a sample of Maslov’s urine to the Brookhaven lab, to rule out radiation poisoning. Stamoran probably thought the idea was absurd. Until the results came back.”